finally decided to put down a fifteen-hundred-foot wildcat. The
guy that ran the rig had a hunch there was oil here if he went
deep enough, but he knew the company wouldn't stick, so he faked
the log of the well as long as he could, then he kept on drilling,
against orders--refused to open his mail, for fear he'd find he
was fired and the job called off. He was a thousand feet deeper
than he'd been ordered to go when--blooie! Over the top she went
with fourteen hundred barrels.... Desdemona's the name of a camp
below here, but they call it Hog Town. More elegant! Down there
the derricks actually straddle one another, and they have to board
them over to keep from drowning one another out when they blow in.
Fellow in Dallas brought in the first well, and it was so big that
his stock went from a hundred dollars a share to twelve thousand.
All in a few weeks. Of course, he started a bank. Funniest people
I ever saw, that way. Usually when a rube makes a winning he
gambles or gets him a woman, but these hicks take their coin and
buy banks.... Ranger's a real town; everything wide open and the
law in on the play. That makes good times. Show me a camp where
the gamblers play solitaire and the women take in washing and I'll
show you a dead village. The joints here have big signs on the
wall, '_Gambling Positively Prohibited_,' and underneath the games
are running high, wide, and fancy. Refined humor, I call it....
There were nine killings one day, but that's above the average.
The last time I was in town a couple of tool dressers got into a
row with a laundryman--claimed they'd been overcharged six cents.
It came to a shooting, and we buried all three of them. Two cents
apiece! That was their closing price. The cost of living is high
enough, but it isn't expensive to die here."

In this vein ran Mallow's talk. From the first he had laid himself